Another year again

 

Yet another year, yet another candle.

This year, I got a present.

This is what it says:
黄岳春景千里晖
德义为怀如鹏飞
顺风翱翔天地阔
名扬气勇五车随

Mid Autumn Festival 中秋节

It is the Mid Autumn Festival again, the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar. A time when the moon is supposedly the fullest. A time of being together with loved ones. And not forgetting, a time to enjoy delicacies like mooncakes...

Wanted to spend today with the kid walking around with a lantern, but work calls... guess I will have to do that another day, when the moon is not as round...

Finding time

We are all busy. And we all have only 24 hours a day. And within that 24 hours, there is so much to accomplish.

We have work to do. We need to eat meals. There are the sanitary needs that takes time too. And everyone needs rest, in fact, quite a lot of it. After all, each of us spends 6 to 8 hours (maybe less, maybe more) sleeping each day. And then you want to spend time with your loved ones, with your friends. Couple that with time for yourself, either pursuing your own hobbies, or just sitting there not thinking of anything, and we see that 24 hours a day seems too little.

But if it is important to you, you need to find time for it. If you believe in doing something, don't leave it hanging, find the time to do it. With only 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the key is to prioritise. What is important to you? Allocate time for that.

We are sometimes amazed at how a person can do well in his career, have a happy family and yet find time to pursue his hobbies. The answer? These are the things important to him, and thus he makes the effort to find time for them.

So work out your priorities, make the effort to find time, and you will find that 24 hours can be spent in meaningful ways.

Finding excuses

I think it is natural of us to want to avoid admitting to our failures. And that is why it takes courage to admit defeat. People have a tendency to find excuses for themselves when things go wrong and results that they wanted to achieve are not attained. My new boss hates such people, calling them "sea lawyers".

We all need to guard ourselves from falling into this trap. Once you start finding an excuse for yourself, you will continue to find excuses for yourself. If you cannot admit to who you are, how can you move on and learn? How can you improve? Only when you know your own shortcomings will you be able to improve.

A journey of self-discovery

Sometimes, it is good to take a journey on your own, to discover yourself again. After all, when things happen so fast in life, it is easy to get caught up in things, to end up going with the flow and in the process, losing oneself. Who am I? What do I want? What do I like/dislike? What do I value?

I know I like something because I tried it. I know I dislike something because I tried it. I know that sometimes, even when I dislike something, I will still do it because I see the need for it. In the process of doing things on the journey of self-discovery, you learn a lot more about yourself than you would otherwise.

The journey need not be a physical one. It can be just a conscious effort for one to actively ask himself, what is it that I want? What is it that I like/dislike? Even in our everyday life, if we actively ask ourselves these questions in our daily actions, it serves as a journey of self-discovery too.

Strength and weakness

Could our strength actually be a manifestation of our weakness? The stronger we appear to be, the weaker we actually are? That the strength we demonstrate is actually a cover to shield the weakness beneath, to prevent being exposed for who we really are?